Derek Chauvin’s attorney says the murder trial ‘is not about race.’ His own line of questioning suggests otherwise.

MINNEAPOLIS – In his effort to find an impartial jury, the lead defense attorney in the murder trial of former Minneapolis police Derek Chauvin has spent the past two weeks questioning potential jurors about their views on racism, discrimination, policing of communities of color and Black Lives Matter.

But on Thursday, Eric Nelson told a prospective juror that the trial is “not about race.”

The response to George Floyd’s death suggests many people believe otherwise. For weeks, thousands of people in all 50 states protested systemic racism and police brutality, spurred by the sight of a Black man dying under the knee of a white police officer after centuries of white supremacist violence against Black people.

“We’re at an interesting point in society where people are telling us what is and what is not about race. I’m not sure that the defense attorney in this case gets to make that decision,” said Samuel R. Sommers, a social psychology professor at Tufts University who studies the effect of race on the legal system. “It’s a tragedy, but it’s become a racially charged instance as well because of what else is going on our society.”

Chauvin is not charged with crimes related to racial bias. But experts say race is at play not only in Floyd’s death but in the courtroom during jury selection. And it will likely have an influence on deliberations and the verdict.

“Nothing magical happens to individuals who show up for jury duty that makes them somehow immune to racial biases,” Sommers said.

Jurors who believe race affects the legal system are ‘absolutely right’

Nelson’s comment bears similarities to previous law enforcement denials that systemic racism is a factor in recent high-profile police killings of Black people.

In October, Louisville Police Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, one of the officers who fired weapons in a failed drug raid that took the life of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black medical worker in Kentucky, said the incident was “not a race thing like people try to make it to be.”